Thursday, October 23, 2008

To Diagnose or Not to Diagnose, THAT Is The Question!

Do you ever have such a bad day that you feel nauseous at the end of the day? You know, the kind of bad day when you barely make it to bedtime and then you are afraid to go to sleep because it means getting up and facing it all again tomorrow. We have had a bad week. Every day seems to be building on the next and it's not getting any easier. Marshall is spiraling downward more every day.

He refuses to go to the Story Time at the Library. When I told him we were going to the library, he said "NO! I'm not going. " I calmly explained he was indeed going. He said, "I won't put my shoes on." Defiance has been his motto this week. He has had meltdown, after meltdown, after meltdown, after meltdown...on and on it goes, where it stops, nobody knows!! I wish I knew. Tonight I want to cry. I'm burned out. I'm tired of him spiraling downward. I'm tired of not knowing I'm doing something he doesn't like and having him scream at me and throw a huge fit. I don't know what I can do to help him. When he's upset like he's been, he hardly talks. In the mornings, he comes in and just grunts. He won't talk.

Today we met with a Grad Student at BYU who is working in the Comprehensive Clinic. We got on the list to have them do a full Neuro Psych eval on Marshall but now we're not sure we want to go through with it. We've HAD the ADOS done before. Two times now actually. We've had the parent interview too. Not much has changed since January. Sure, now he's potty trained but that's about the only difference. Why should we get an evaluation? We can't really afford it. I think it was going to cost us one thousand dollars. OUCH! For a student family, that's a HUGE amount of money. My husband is a Grad student at BYU. He is getting paid as a research assistant this semester and he also teaches Astronomy at UVU. We don't really have any extra money. I'm torn between thinking we might actually have a shot at getting an accurate diagnosis and just not being willing to give my kids nothing for Christmas so we can diagnose Marshall. It's just a label. That's what I tell myself, but I feel like I need to know. He's not getting better and he's in his 2nd year of Pre-School.

As if his aggressive behaviors weren't enough, he has big problems with boundaries. He touches my breasts on purpose sometimes. He tries to touch me other places. Every once in a while, he hits his brother in the crotch on purpose. One day, he even put his face in my neighbor's crotch. She knows what Marshall is really like. I made him say sorry but he wouldn't talk. I was MORTIFIED and totally disgusted!! This behavior is not getting better and I don't know what to do! He's going to be four tomorrow. If we can't get this under control now, what's to say it won't get worse as he gets older? I feel like it probably will.

I'm just going to go take some Melatonin so I will fall asleep and pray that I can handle tomorrow.

3 comments:

tiptoe mama said...

My heart goes out to you. It is so much harder to be a parent than I ever imagined. I wish I knew something better, or more comforting to tell you, but I don't. So I'll just pray for you. Hang in there, and know that you have friends here who care for you. :)

heather said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ima Mom said...

Will your medicaid not cover this? Maybe you could apply for social security SSI or Medicaid D to supplement things? If not we ways Dr. Peck for the ADOS at the SLC Health Dept. even though we live in another county and he helped a lot.